ST ANN’S BAY, St Ann — Councillors in the St Ann Parish Council have expressed concern about the poor maintenance of fire hydrants in the parish, many of which they say have been out of service for several months.

According to them, the situation has placed properties and lives at risk and they want the Ministry of Local Government to put measures in place to ensure the timely maintenance of the parish’s hydrants.

Addressing last Thursday’s monthly general meeting at the council, assistant superintendent at the St Ann Fire Department Baron Williams said the department had a system in place, but it was hindered by a limited budget.

“Since the fire hydrants came over to the fire brigade’s responsibility, we have not been getting the kind of funding that can deal with establishing new hydrants, but all of these are being looked at as we speak about our forward planning,” Williams said.

Lambert Weir, councillor for the Claremont Division, said there was only one working hydrant in the entire community of Claremont, and repeated attempts to get the authorities to repair or replace other broken hydrants have been futile.

He said, too, that in some cases the hydrants cannot be found because they are covered by overgrown shrubs.

“I don’t want something happen: a fire breaks out and a truck comes and it cannot get water from the fire hydrant, it cannot get to a well and the property burns to the ground,” Weir said.

In addition, the councillor said the area did not have a fire station and as such firefighters aren’t able to effectively do their jobs, but were restricted to cooling down operations. Weir said the issue was worrying and added that it was important for the community to at least have working fire hydrants.

Deputy chairman and councillor for the Brown’s Town Division Delroy Redway said the concerns required immediate attention and the council would write to the local government ministry to outline the sensitivity of the situation and the urgency with which it should be addressed.

Meanwhile, Weir said while the situation was of grave concern in his division, the problem is parish-wide.